A baggage handler has predicted months more misery at Manchester Airport as the whittled down and demoralised workforce struggles to deal with demand.
The veteran luggage worker, who is employed by one of the companies working at the airport, says stress is building and morale is falling as they race in vein to keep up with incoming and outgoing planes.
They claim that their crew is working with half the number they did before the pandemic, meaning their efforts to load and unload the aircraft in good time are inevitably in vein.
The baggage handler - who spoke to the Mirror on the condition of anonymity - said better conditions and pay elsewhere had led many experienced colleagues to leave.
Manchester Airport provides and maintain the airport facility, while airlines are responsible for baggage, and usually employ contractors to deal with bags for them.
Injuries caused by the gruelling job had also rendered workers out of action or unwilling to keep heaving bags over the hot summer months, they claimed.
"People aren't happy and more people are looking at leaving," they told The Mirror.
"It's good people that are looking at leaving. It's a vicious circle. You have to have 50 people on the ramp, but we're down to about 25 some days.
"The new people don't know what they're doing so you have to babysit for them for a month.
"There won't be much change unless we get the man power in. Otherwise, we're going to continue having to work harder."
Manchester Airport started suffering from lengthy delays at security and check-in at the start of this year, with the Easter Holidays proving a particularly difficult point for staff and customers.
Last week Managing director Chris Woodroof said that while improvements had been made since then, he couldn't promise passengers a "great" experience this summer.
"The aviation industry was decimated during Covid, and now has to do an enormous rebuild effort," he told the BBC.
"That's airports, airlines, ground handlers, border force. All of these organisations have the biggest recruitment effort they've ever had to do. The reality is we are still recruiting."
The baggage handler said when Covid hit, their team was whittled down significantly and the vast majority of people put on furlough.
"They took all the man power off us," they claimed. "During the pandemic people were finding other employment, and some people never came back."
Before the airport ground to a halt and staff were furloughed, the baggage handler said they got "quite a kick working for the airport."
"I was enjoying the job. I liked it. The comradery with the guys was great," they said. "We would keep each other going."
Since returning, a team made up of new faces with fewer workers and an increasing workload has struggled to find similar levels of morale.
"We've get more flights going out, we haven't got the people to cope with it," the baggage handler continued. "We don't have enough men and you get more stress because you have to do more work.
"The department I'm in, some days you can have nine men, sometimes five. They're struggling to get people through the doors.
"It the same for all the companies (contracted by airlines running at Manchester Airport). The comradery among the guys is low.
"Stress levels are high, but you've got to keep it going. In the afternoons when you have to take one out and put one in, that's when the backlogs happen. You're under pressure, you're getting stressed.
"By 3 or 4pm you have a backlog. We work nine hour shifts, and you're going constantly for a good seven of them hours
"It can be tiring to keep up with the pace. Even when you're offloading, there's a lot of physical labour."
The baggage handler said pay, which averaged out at about £10 an hour for their team, wasn't enough to keep people at the company.
In an average month he'd take home £1,400, £300 of which was spent on petrol for the commute to and from the airport.
"It's the stress and injuries as well," he continued.
"Elbows, backs, necks, knees. If we had more manpower it'd take away the strain."
